At War
by percyjacksonfantothecore
Summary: Travis isn't used to change. But he can't help notice it as the camp prepares for war. Suddenly, there is no time to have fun and play games and pranks when their doom is impending. Pre-TLO. Mild Tratie.


**Travis isn't used to change. But he can't help notice it as the camp prepares for war. Suddenly, there is no time to have fun and play games and pranks when their doom is impending. Pre-TLO. Mild Tratie.**

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Travis really wasn't used to change. All his life he'd wanted things to stay the same. Still that being said, he and his mom moved around a lot, and they moved even more after Connor came. His mom had never taken the chance of monsters, at least not with _two _demigods. He'd always known his dad was Hermes; his mom was pretty open about it.

The summer Percy Jackson was to turn sixteen and either save or destroy Olympus, he was 14 years old.

July had been sweltering, warm even for New York. But this was all nothing compared to the heat among everyone at camp. Gone were the days of pranking. Instead, every waking day was preparation for the worst.

Travis Stoll had been coming to camp for several years by now, but even he had to admit living life in constant fear like this was so much worse—perhaps even worse than Thalia's tree dying. _Almost_.

Travis sighed, glancing at the empty volleyball courts. Not a single demigod was wasting his time.

Travis sat up suddenly, driven with new purpose. Why should he be wasting his time anyways? Travis stormed into the always overcrowded Hermes cabin, searching for his soul mate, his younger brother Connor.

Connor was 13, but his birthday was in May while Travis' was in September, so for at least a couple months, he could always claim he was only a year younger than Travis and would soon catch up to him.

Connor was sitting in the corner, uncharacteristically moody. He was curled up on his yellow sleeping bag on the floor, reading a book in Ancient Greek, looking almost sullen.

Travis could almost believe he was catching up to him by his wise countenance. For someone so young, Connor had always held a remarkable spark of wisdom. He was often the one to counsel Travis on his decisions. Travis settled slowly onto the unoccupied half of Connor's sleeping bag. "What's up?"

Connor looked up. He shrugged. "Nothing, really. That's all we do these days—nothing at all."

"That or training," reminded Travis unapologetically.

Connor shot him an angry look that almost seemed…accusing.

Travis shrugged it off. "Fine, then. What do you want to do?"

Connor's lips quirked up. "Not stick chocolate Easter bunnies on the Demeter cabin's roof, that's for sure."

Travis laughed along with him. They'd both performed the prank of the decade just about a month ago by gluing the chocolate bunnies to Demeter's grass roof, and naturally, Katie Gardner had flipped out.

It had been quite a spectacle, but it didn't receive the normal applause with everybody being all dreary about war.

"Katie would kill us," he murmured.

"Starting with you, of course."

Travis shrugged, denying nothing. It was true Katie liked Travis lesser than she did Connor, but that didn't mean she normally liked to strike up a conversation with him. For her revenge, he knew without a doubt she'd start torturing Travis first.

Maybe by trying to force-feed him cereal.

Travis shuddered, violent chills racking his body at the horrendous thought.

"Why don't you go talk to," he coughed suddenly, "er, bother Katie?"

Travis glared at his younger brother. He was so not subtle. Ever since they were 12, when he'd hinted at Travis' dreadful secret, Travis had been on his back about keeping quiet.

Travis left to go bother—er, talk to—Katie Gardner, his second-most favorite person in the world.

…

As luck would have it, she was not in the strawberry fields or in her cabin. Instead, Katie Gardner was doing the thing he'd least expected of her—she was training.

She was alone in the corner of the big green field, slashing away at her dummy. Travis knew from experience she carried a small dagger, barely 3 inches not counting the hilt. It wasn't flashy or shiny like any of the other weapons, but instead a weapon of stealth, a dull charcoal, whose acuity was only betrayed by the glint of the sharpened blade. It was the weapon that would slowly kill or cut the skin.

"Hey," he said softly, stopping a few feet away from her.

Katie whirled, her dagger arm whirling into motion. Travis ducked, kissing the ground almost, as the knife sailed past where his head would have been and with a sharp thud lodged itself into the dummy 20 yards across, the force of the throw ripping the sack so violently the stuffing piled out.

Other campers gawked at her.

Travis gawked at her as well, even though that was what he did on most days. "Why'd you do that?" he exploded. "You could have killed me!"

There was dangerous fire to Katie's eyes, the kind Travis only saw when he insulted her plants. "You're right," she said evenly, her defensive stance not faltering. "I could have, and so could anybody else. That's why we train—to defend ourselves."

Travis sneered. "Defend, not attack."

Katie paused abruptly, realizing she had turned into a bipolar alien. She automatically leaned back, away from Travis. Several tense seconds of silence passed before she said quietly, "I'm sorry. I was getting really into it."

Travis blinked furiously. "Yeah," he echoed lamely, deflating nearly as quickly as she had.

He could physically see the guilt eating away at her. She shook her head. "I'm really sorry," she repeated again.

Travis stared at her, the way he did on most days, but he scrutinized her even closely now. "Sure," he said unconvincingly.

She rolled her eyes. "Come on, I said I was sorry."

Travis shrugged his shoulders innocently. "Okay," he said, brevity apparent in his voice.

"Fine, then," Katie told him, serious and sarcastic. She retrieved her dagger, then wiped her dagger against the grass, but there was no stereotypical blood left over, only piles of stuffing. Fair enough, decided Travis. No blood tonight. Katie smiled devilishly, and then walked away from him.

Yeah. Literally. Just walked away.

"Hey!" Travis called at her back. "Woman! What the devil do you think you're doing?"

Katie stopped, and turned to glare at Travis. "Did you just refer to me by my gender?" she asked. "Because that is the most sexist, most chauvinistic, most _despicable_—"

Travis ran to catch up with her. "I was trying to get your attention."

Katie smiled triumphantly, surprisingly complacent for someone cut-off mid rant. "And I was trying to get you to walk with me."

"Any day, babe. Any day," he told her.

She substituted her previous rant with this opportunity. Travis spared himself the pain of actually listening to every one of her speedy, incomprehensible words (if that was what they were) and instead chose to cut her off. Again.

"So why were you training anyways?" he wondered.

Katie stopped. She seemed to be quickly realizing there would be no end to her ranting and no end to Travis's obnoxiousness. They were forever in a stalemate. Travis hummed in approval. "I was training so I could save my own life and if possible another's in the battle," she admitted uncharacteristically quiet.

Travis felt a chill scrape down his spine at that. Out loud, he tried for a light tone. "Gee, Katie, that was so textbook."

Katie stared at him. Travis self-consciously pulled at his hair. Her eyes—bright green—had always fascinated him, but he had never imagined they would hold the kind of weight they did now. "We're all going to die, Travis."

"We're mortal, Katie. We all have to die sometime," he reminded gently.

She ignored him. "The least I can do is attempt to prolong it. Save my sisters or your brother."

"Connor?" he said, baffled.

"Or even you," she added, her voice dipping into a whisper so hushed he had to lean in close to hear her.

"Come again?"

She looked back up at him. "You heard me."

She had him there. "I know," Travis admitted. "But I just wanted to hear you say it again."

Katie sighed deeply, exasperatedly, traces of the old Katie warming up Travis' heart instantly. "We might not know it yet, but we—all of us, that is to say—are about to wade into a war. And not all of us are going to survive. I'm only increasing my chances. Travis, listen to me," she ordered. "We're at war, whether we know it or not. It's just a matter of time until we attack them or they attack us."

Travis nodded. "You just repeat everything you just told me to that senior scribe so he can write it down and show it to Percy. That was a really good speech."

Katie sighed again. "I, uh, better get going anyways," she said, pointing to her cabin, still decorated with a couple hidden Easter bunnies.

Travis smiled fondly. "You do that," he said, waving.

She waved back, disappearing until she was a small distant figure and then, after the slam of a door, he couldn't see her at all.

Change.

It was coming, coming to get them all.

Travis laughed silently, imagining change as the culprit, not Kronos or Luke, his half-brother. And Travis as the hero. He just hoped being the hero didn't mean soul-reaping. (He and Connor, being stealth masters, had listened in on one of Annabeth and Chiron's many discussions about the Great Prophecy.)

Apollo seemed to have driven his Maserati a little too low, because the sun just seemed to get a lot brighter. Travis beamed at the world.

Things had just seemed to get a lot better, but not for long, though. Even Travis knew this was the calm before the storm.

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Thanks for reading!


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